Mississippi Sports Betting Bottoms Out On Handle, Revenue Totals

• Mississippi baseball betting made up over three-fourths of the entire monthly betting handle during July.
• Football betting in Mississippi alone has totaled $112.5 million since the state’s launch in August 2018.
• The last four months of sportsbooks’ betting revenue don’t even add up to the best performing month in Mississippi sports betting history.

BILOXI, Miss. – For the fifth straight month of legal sports betting in Mississippi, the sportsbooks have seen a decline in the monthly betting handle.

Being as high as $32 million a few months ago, July reported a handle of only $13.38 million – the lowest total since their August 2018 launch. On the revenue side, things didn’t fare much better, as the $1.05 million kept by the books was also the lowest since the state’s launch.

This is a combination of the summertime generally seeing the least amount of action as well as the books posting their lowest hold percentage (7.87%) over the course of the last eight months, excluding May.

Still, the books were able to send some tax money to the government – $127,724 in total. The state collected $85,149 of this total, while the cities that host the sportsbooks saw $42,575 enter their general fund.

In the most recent report, baseball betting accounted for 76% of the entire handle and 64% of all revenue. At the coastal books alone, their baseball betting handle made up over 50% of the state’s total as well as over a third of the state’s monthly revenue.

The second highest revenue behind the coastal books’ baseball wagering was parlay cards at the northern regions. This can be attributed to the 24.35% hold percentage, which was the best performing sector for the month, by percentage.

Even with the heavy focus on baseball during these summer months, the sport has yet to surpass the total sports betting handle for parlay cards since the state’s launch. Roughly $3 million shy, parlays have made up $46.2 million of the state’s $315 million handle but most of this can be attributed to action taken during the football seasons.

With only two weeks until the start of the NFL season, bettors should be back to their norm, posting monthly handles as high as $40 million very soon.

News tags: Mississippi | NFL